AbstractA group of operational researchers and managers were questioned on the degree of managerial involvement in a project with which they were concerned. From these data, a management participation score was developed for each project, and the studies were divided into three groups: (1) unsuccessful, (2) successful but unimplemented, and (3) successful and implemented. No significant differences were found between analysts' and managers' perceptions of the degree of managerial participation, but analysts perceived a higher percentage of the successful studies as being implemented. When the data were divided into linear programming and other studies in order to be analysed separately (thereby adjusting for perceptual effects of different techniques), significantly higher participation scores were found for successful and implemented studies as compared to the scores for successful but unimplemented studies.